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Inconspicuous Consumption / Navigating by aliveness / Mini electric shaver

2026-07-19 17:01:47

Small obsessions

Like the podcast 99% Invisible, the newsletter/blog Inconspicuous Consumption pays obsessive attention to minor details that most people don’t even see. For instance: long essays on whether the final button holes on shirts should be vertical or horizontal, or Where Should the Apostrophe Go on a Vertically Lettered Sign?. More on ashtray designs, the colors of butter, security envelope patterns. The less significant the details are, the more attention they get. Entire worlds can be glimpsed at the end of an office stapler. The tagline for the site is Big Enthusiasm for Small Details. Few who descend down these rabbit holes return the same. — KK

Navigating by aliveness

I love the core question this piece “Navigating by aliveness” offers when wondering if you’re on the right track: “Does this feel like it’s taking me in the direction of greater aliveness?” Aliveness here means fully inhabiting an experience and shifting your attention away from what you’re feeling and toward the depth and clarity with which you’re feeling it, whether it’s painful, dull, or joyful. The author goes on to explore why this matters in an AI‑shaped future, and suggests we relate to technology a bit like the Amish do: only adopting tools if they clearly serve our deepest values, rather than assuming they’re automatically good. For me, this definition alone feels like a daily way to check my own presence, and how fully I’m actually here in my life, moment to moment. — CD

Mini electric shaver

I bought this tiny Mbzoey Electric Foil Shaver to take on trips, but it’s become my everyday razor. It’s rechargeable via USB-C and lasts at least a few weeks of daily shaving on a single charge, with an LED display that shows how much charge is left. No more shaving cream — I just run it over my face dry. I can do an early-evening touch-up before going out in under a minute. — MF

Mashup renaissance

I love this mashup of electronic music plus French medieval instrumentation, sometimes called Bardcore. A good example of bardcore is the French group Courseval doing Daft Punk’s cover song Veridis Quo. As one commenter said “Proof that we could have had Daft Peasant any time in the last 500 years.” — KK

See the rhythm of your writing

Text as Music is a simple browser tool where you paste your writing and it colors every sentence by length, so you can literally see the rhythm on the page. Micro sentences turn one color, short another, and medium and long each have their own. It’s inspired by Gary Provost’s line, “Don’t just write words. Write music.” — CD

Seth’s Riffs

My friend Seth Godin — author of Purple Cow, Linchpin, Tribes, The Dip, and This Is Marketing — writes a daily email full of excellent short ideas about life and business. But it turns out he has even shorter ideas that don’t make it into the daily email, and he’s collected them on a page called Seth’s Riffs. Each one is a sentence or two. You can vote for your favorites, which sorts the best to the top. A few of mine:

  • The question shouldn’t be, “does it scale?” Instead, it might be, “is it worth it?”

  • Waiting for perfect is never as smart as making progress.

  • Defending mediocrity is exhausting.

  • Using an existing idea to solve a new problem isn’t theft. Ideas shared are the most powerful kind.

— MF


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Recomendo is published by Cool Tools Lab, a small company of three people. We also run the Cool Tools website, a YouTube channel and podcast, and other newsletters, including Recomendo Deals, Gar’s Tips & Tools, Nomadico, What’s in my NOW?, Tools for Possibilities, Books That Belong On Paper, Cool Tools Weekly Newsletter, and Book Freak.

Hoppers / Cognitive shuffling / Airplane phone holder

2026-07-12 17:00:36

Pixar’s animal spirits

Pixar has been in a slump, but their newest release is fun and has some of the old magic back. Hoppers (Disney+ or BluRay) carries a convoluted plot involving animals and animal robots, downloading avatars, and key species in wildlife ecology. And for the memes, lots of beavers. It’s a fully realized world, lighthearted and whimsical, with some interesting ideas, and not too predictable. — KK

Cognitive shuffling sleep trick

This article introduced me to cognitive shuffling, a very simple word‑based visual exercise that helps the author fall asleep faster. You pick a random, emotionally neutral word like “duck,” picture it, then move to another unrelated word, and keep gently shuffling through these images until you drift off. I’ve been trying this for about a week now, and one of two things keeps happening: I either slip into a liminal hypnagogic state where the imagery shifts and takes over until I fall asleep, or my mind gets quickly bored by not getting to make associations with the non‑linear images and just shuts down into sleep. It might not be my favorite entry into sleep, but it did work and could be helpful to those struggling with insomnia. — CD

Airplane seatback phone holder

Sometimes I watch a show on my phone while flying. I’ve propped it against a wadded-up napkin on the tray table, watching it slide off every time the seat in front reclines. This small metal clamp from Ugreen grips the tray table (or a seatback lip, luggage handle, or kitchen cabinet — the jaw opens 8–25mm), and your phone snaps onto the magnetic head, holding it through turbulence. It folds flat, rotates for portrait or landscape, and works with any MagSafe case. It also works on a treadmill, nightstand, or car headrest. — MF

Kid phone

You can buy your kid a dumbphone, or purchase an app (with paid subscription!) to make a spare smartphone dumber, but Jeremy White at Wired figured out that you can also use the buried options in an iPhone to craft a perfect device for a kid. These options are somewhat hidden under the Accessibility menu, and seem to be designed for those with cognitive disabilities, but also work to constrain the access your child has. Full instructions in this Wired article, This Buried Apple Feature Turns an iPhone Into the Perfect Kids’ Dumb Phone. — KK

Six additional recommendations

This week’s What’s in my NOW? is my own issue. As editor, I usually feature other people’s lists—and we’re always accepting submissions, so if you’d like to share yours, check out this Call for Submissions. But this time I shared six things shaping my life right now: three physical, two digital, and one invisible. They’re more intimate than what I’d normally recommend here—closer to my inner life and energy healing practice—like a full-body red light therapy mat that puts me into a euphoric state in about 10 minutes, AudioPen for transcribing my dreams, and the invisible one: Ubuntu, “I am because we are,” a reminder that my growth isn’t a solo path but happens in the uncomfortable, relational space between me and others. Read the full issue here. — CD

A reading club for forgotten books

I run a newsletter called Book Freak, and I’ve started a paid feature I’m calling the Deep Cuts reading club. Each month I dig up a great book that time forgot — usually something out of print and not on Project Gutenberg — and produce a clean ebook edition of it in EPUB and PDF, with a cover and a short foreword explaining why it’s worth your time. Subscribers get a growing library plus a discussion thread for the monthly pick. The first one is H.G. Wells’s strange 1928 satire, Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island. — MF


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Recomendo is an authentic, hand-crafted, human-written weekly newsletter that is free, but not cheap. Please consider supporting our work with a paid option, now at the low price of $45 per year. Paid subs enable us to keep making it free for others.

Upgrade


Recomendo is published by Cool Tools Lab, a small company of three people. We also run the Cool Tools website, a YouTube channel and podcast, and other newsletters, including Recomendo Deals, Gar’s Tips & Tools, Nomadico, What’s in my NOW?, Tools for Possibilities, Books That Belong On Paper, Cool Tools Weekly Newsletter, and Book Freak.

Sensing Wonder / Worse on Purpose / Ultimate historical maps

2026-07-05 20:46:06

Sensing Wonder

One of my favorite newsletters, Down the Rabbit Hole, is a weekly, curated collection of psychoactive internet rabbit holes exploring meaning, beauty, and aliveness. The creator recently shared a virtual “window” you can click open that sends you to one of the most-clicked links from the past five years. It feels like StumbleUpon with soul— tiny portal into wonder. — CD

Worse on Purpose

I’ve been burned by buying a “buy-it-for-life” brand only to discover the company and the logo were sold years ago. Worse on Purpose rates 215 brands — tools, bags, apparel, eyewear, and footwear — as either Approved, Watchlist, Former Great, or Avoid. A sample: Ray-Ban is designated “Avoid” (“Priced as luxury, produced to commodity standards”). Another example: Peak Design is designated “Approved”, (because it is still founder-owned). — MF

Ultimate historical maps

Imagine having access to all the ancient maps of the world, and being able to explore them with AI, including searching on the words etched in the maps, or concepts about the maps – for instance “give me all the maps showing the routes of Roman aqueducts.” All this and more are available online for free, at the David Rumsey Map Collection. For 25 years Rumsey has been scanning over 140,000 maps of all kinds from his insane collection from around the world. He then innovates ways to share them. When you find a map you particularly like, you can tap a button and have it printed out on a large scale and mailed to you for a reasonable fee. This is an international treasure. — KK

Decent kid’s shows

What was the most streamed show in 2025? Bluey, a kids animated show from Australia. Bluey has about 150 very short episodes using an animated dog family to model emotional intelligence and give toddlers strategies for big feelings. Like Sesame Street, adults can tolerate watching it. I think early Sesame Street is better, teaching more and broader, but Bluey is a good second choice. (Technically streamed on Disney+, but available on YouTube as well.) Because episodes are shorter (about 10 minutes), small kids love rewatching them. — KK

Cushy airplane seat

I just got back from an overseas trip, and this inflatable travel seat cushion made a 10+ hour flight—and those board-hard seats—so much more bearable. I was hesitant to become someone who carries a personal butt pillow through the airport, but I’m glad I got over it and brought it along. It deflates and rolls up smaller than a neck pillow. — CD

MeatStick V Duo wireless meat thermometer

I’ve ruined my share of meat by cutting in to check doneness. The MeatStick V Duo uses two wireless probes that you can put into two different cuts, and the app predicts when each will hit its target temperature. A small LCD base shows the temps so I don’t have to grab my phone with greasy hands. The probes can handle open flame up to 1200°F and are dishwasher safe. — MF


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Recomendo is an authentic, hand-crafted, human-written weekly newsletter that is free, but not cheap. Please consider supporting our work with a paid option, now at the low price of $45 per year. Paid subs enable us to keep making it free for others.

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Recomendo is published by Cool Tools Lab, a small company of three people. We also run the Cool Tools website, a YouTube channel and podcast, and other newsletters, including Recomendo Deals, Gar’s Tips & Tools, Nomadico, What’s in my NOW?, Tools for Possibilities, Books That Belong On Paper, Cool Tools Weekly Newsletter, and Book Freak.

Retro Recomendo: Outdoor Essentials

2026-06-28 17:01:30

Our subscriber base has grown so much since we first started nine years ago, that most of you have missed all our earliest recommendations. The best of these are still valid and useful, so we’re trying out something new — Retro Recomendo. Once every 6 weeks, we’ll send out a throwback issue of evergreen recommendations focused on one theme from the past 10 years.

Prescription dive mask

I wish I had realized years ago that you can get scuba masks with inexpensive prescription lenses. My wife needs heavy duty glasses, with severe -10 corrections, and was otherwise blind underwater. But she got a great simple diving mask with -10 lenses for $60. This Promate Slender Mask is available with Rx lenses from GetWetStore. Now she can snorkel with the rest of us. — KK

Four legs

Hiking poles give me two extra legs. They are most useful going downhill, over uneven or wet terrain. I bring them wherever I hike, especially when I travel, because I use a collapsible set that folds up to less than 14 inches (36 cm). That not only fits in carry-on luggage, it will also hide away in a day pack, so I can take them out only when needed. These no-name $26 Covacure Trekking Poles are a bargain and pretty typical of the class: lightweight aluminum, unfold in a second, and are very rigid. You can get featherweight carbon fiber if you want to pay more. — KK

Ultralight trail running shoes + foam insoles

After a couple of years of walking five miles a day on my treadmill desk, my knees and feet were starting to feel worse for wear. I read Craig Mod’s recommendation for TSLA lightweight trail running shoes with a wide toebox and high-quality insoles and bought them. A month later, I’m pleasantly surprised that my knee and feet pain is gone. I just bought a second pair in another color because I don’t want to wear any other shoe. — MF

Hand crank LED lantern

Last week, Southern California experienced a heavy rainstorm that caused a power outage in our area for 18 hours. We would have been in the dark without the Goal Zero Lighthouse 600 Camping Lantern. It features a bright and adjustable LED light, as well as a built-in lithium battery that can charge smartphones and other USB devices. In case of a power failure, the lantern can also be powered manually by turning a crank for one minute, which provides 10 minutes of illumination. — MF

Packable caps

My current go-to hiking hat is the Parapack P-CAP—an adjustable, foldable cap that’s so breathable and lightweight it barely feels like I’m wearing anything. It also looks better than most of my sun hats and is far less bulky. I keep it in my purse now because it packs down so small. You can even fold it into a compact pouch. — CD

Water bottle sling

For walks and shorter hikes, I’ve been skipping my daypack in favor of ChicoBag’s water bottle sling. It’s comfortable, easy to wear, and has a surprisingly roomy pocket for my phone and keys. Like most ChicoBags, it folds down to almost nothing, so I just keep it with me at all times. — CD


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Recomendo is an authentic, hand-crafted, human-written weekly newsletter that is free, but not cheap. Consider supporting our work with a paid option, now at the low price of $45 per year. Paid subs enable us to keep making it free for others. Recomendo is published by Cool Tools Lab, a small company of three people. We also run the Cool Tools website, a YouTube channel and podcast, and other newsletters, including Gar’s Tips & Tools, Nomadico, What’s in my NOW?, Tools for Possibilities, Books That Belong On Paper and Book Freak.

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Works in Progress / 100 greatest bird names / Cat water fountain

2026-06-21 17:02:21

If you find any value in our little hand-written, hand-crafted, mostly free newsletter, the best thing you can do for us in return is to refer Recomendo to your friends. Because our casual suggestion might not be sufficient, we have added a tangible incentive: subscriber referral rewards. When you share Recomendo with friends who sign up using your unique link (at the bottom of every email), we will reward them with our free newsletter and reward you with some special thank‑yous.

  • At 4 referrals, you’ll receive an exclusive post, Things That Should Be Better Known — a curated PDF guide to our own most dependable, most used, favorite products that should be better known.

  • At 7 referrals, you’ll get an invitation to join one of our live quarterly AMA office‑hours calls, where you can ask us anything.

  • At 10 referrals, we’ll send you a personalized doodle from us as a small, distinctive unique hand‑made thank you.

Your personal referral link lives at the bottom of each Recomendo newsletter email. Forward the issue to anyone you think would enjoy useful recommendations every week, and suggest they sign up. If they do, we will keep track and thank you with a flourish of small favors.


Underrated new ideas

Before I edited Wired magazine, I edited the Whole Earth Review (formerly CoEvolution Quarterly). It was a magazine for conceptual news. We published new ideas. Since its demise, blogs and Substack in general have taken up that role. But starting a few years ago, a new magazine has appeared that is the closest replacement to Whole Earth. Called Works in Progress, published by the payments company Stripe, its mission is to disseminate “new and underrated ideas to improve the world.” Broadly the articles cover technology, science, building stuff, policy, and cultural innovations, but always with a slant on making progress, moving forward, a sense of optimism about what is possible. They publish new ideas. A couple of examples from recent issues: vaccinating wild animals, creating a rat-free city, using micro-bubbles to deliver drugs. Works in Progress is the only magazine I get delivered on paper; I enjoy reading its designed pages, and getting the extra bits you don’t get online. All the main articles are online for free, and also available as a Substack subscription. Their treasure trove of back issues has more new ideas per minute than anywhere else I know. — KK

100 greatest bird names of all time

Bless the bird lovers who take the time to make lists like this. Robert Francis ranked the 100 greatest bird names of all time, and my affinity for the bird kingdom keeps deepening the more I meet. They’re all so cute, and I wish I could hold them rather than scroll through them. It’s hard to pick a favorite, but based on names and cuteness combined, #96 Handsome Fruiteater beats out the rest. — CD

Stainless steel cat water fountain

My next-door neighbor has one of water fountains for pets says his cats love it. Cats seem to be naturally drawn to the sound and look of running water, and they’ll often drink from a fountain when they’d ignore a regular bowl. This one is made of stainless steel, so there are no seams or plastic crevices for bacteria to hide in, and it’s dishwasher-safe for easy cleaning. It holds 74oz, enough to keep multiple cats watered for days, and a window on the side lets you check the level without lifting the lid. The 5V pump runs quietly, and it comes with three activated-carbon filters. — MF

Webpage folk art

This is fun, and worth a few minutes glance: Creativity in the form of archived web pages from the dawn of the internet. When the web was first sprung upon the world in the 1990s, anybody could make a website themselves, but no pages had yet been made so there was no agreement on what a website should look like, then suddenly a million people created millions of websites without designers, but stuffed with colors, fonts, icons, animations, pictures, infinite scrolls, no limits. The exuberance is boundless. Someone selected the best from this wild big bang and merged it into one page. It’s our era’s folk art. — KK

Museum quality display stands

I am a crystal collector, although for legitimacy purposes I’d rather call them mineral specimens, and they deserve to be on display, not in a drawer or crowded on a shelf. Art Display Essentials is a great source for museum quality stands, with pricing comparable to other online storefronts. Highly recommend if you’re an amateur collector who wants to level up their setup. — CD

Electronics for kids

Electronics for Kids, a new book by Øyvind Nydal Dahl's, starts with the basics — making a battery from a lemon, turning a bolt into an electromagnet — then moves into soldering real circuits, and finally into digital electronics, introducing logic gates and memory circuits before culminating in an LED reaction game that tests how fast you can catch a blinking light. The illustrations are clear throughout. Despite the title, I'd recommend it for adults as well as kids. — MF


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Recomendo is an authentic, hand-crafted, human-written weekly newsletter that is free, but not cheap. Please consider supporting our work with a paid option, now at the low price of $45 per year. Paid subs enable us to keep making it free for others.

Upgrade


Recomendo is published by Cool Tools Lab, a small company of three people. We also run the Cool Tools website, a YouTube channel and podcast, and other newsletters, including Recomendo Deals, Gar’s Tips & Tools, Nomadico, What’s in my NOW?, Tools for Possibilities, Books That Belong On Paper, Cool Tools Weekly Newsletter, and Book Freak.

Work light / Dad gift / Searchable Attenborough

2026-06-14 17:01:52

Best work light

My sister has one of these Nightstick rechargeable floodlights and uses it for crawlspaces and poking around the yard after dark. It throws a strong beam — 600 lumens on high, 225 on low — and the single push-button switch is easy to find by feel. What makes it extra useful are the three built-in magnets and the detachable hook, which rotates 360 degrees so you can clamp it onto a pipe, car hood, or garage door and work hands-free. It recharges from either AC or DC power. — MF

Dad gift

I have recently been enjoying a tool I did not know I needed in my workshop. It’s a no-name high powered blower. When working in a shop, there is a constant need to clean away bits, sawdust, shavings, and other detritus that accumulate on a surface or tool. One blast from this and it is all sent to the floor. This replaces air hoses, or even other dedicated blowers because it fits onto any of the cordless batteries I already own, and because it is charged it is always handy. It also works for cleaning up patios and driveways. This delight in blowing stuff clean might be a dad thing. So I nominate this as a very dad-ish Father’s Day gift. Get one that fits his particular color batteries. — KK

Searchable Attenborough

Searchable Attenborough is a nature documentary archive that has indexed nearly 5,000 episodes across 90 of David Attenborough’s series. You can search by animal, habitat, location, natural phenomenon, or theme, and it accurately points you to the streaming service where you can watch. It feels like having direct access to learning about Earth and all its kingdoms. — CD

Counterculture design archive

Far Out Company is a curated archive of 1960s–70s counterculture visual art — concert posters, TV shows, underground newspapers, commune newsletters, comix, hippie business advertisements, and album art. I love the DIY design aesthetic of this era: hand-lettered type, day-glo colors, psychedelic illustrations. Artists and designers like Wes Wilson, Rick Griffin, and Milton Glaser were doing world-class work for free newspapers. It’s a good resource for design inspiration or a trippy rabbit hole to fall into. — MF

Art inspiration

Kids are so naturally creative they should be our art teachers. And their creativity is boundless as long as you don’t hamper them by calling the assignment making “art.” It’s more fun than that. Those two premises enliven artist Austin Kleon’s newest book, Don’t Call It Art. Kleon’s mission is encouraging creativity in kids and adults by means of stories, reminders, examples, and bits of his own art. His little tome is charming and inspirational. — KK

Free Pomodoro app

I’ve been looking for a replacement Pomodoro app for over a year, ever since my old browser extension stopped being supported. After trying a few that all wanted subscriptions or felt too distracting, I finally found a truly free one called Breaks. It runs quietly in the Mac menu bar, is easy to use, and lets me customize my focus and break times. — CD


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Recomendo is an authentic, hand-crafted, human-written weekly newsletter that is free, but not cheap. Please consider supporting our work with a paid option, now at the low price of $45 per year. Paid subs enable us to keep making it free for others.

Upgrade


Recomendo is published by Cool Tools Lab, a small company of three people. We also run the Cool Tools website, a YouTube channel and podcast, and other newsletters, including Recomendo Deals, Gar’s Tips & Tools, Nomadico, What’s in my NOW?, Tools for Possibilities, Books That Belong On Paper, Cool Tools Weekly Newsletter, and Book Freak.